The FBI is interested in the SDUSD whiteboard saga

What if all this money had been spent on evaluating and training teachers? You don't need whiteboards to teach. Simply walking around the classroom to look at what kids are doing, or skillfully asking for oral responses, will let teachers know if students are learning the lesson. One of my favorite tricks is NOT to let the smartest kids answer right away. Instead, the teacher waits until quite a few hands are raising before calling on someone. Another technique: ask another student if the first student has answered correctly. Do this even when the first student HAS answered correctly.

Legal Questions on How Schools Chose Their Whiteboard Brand
Emily Alpert
Voice of San Diego
February 25, 2010

...In a recent interview, Grier said he might have said that Promethean boards should be installed in classrooms, but that was a meaningless verbal slip, like the Southern habit of calling every soda a Coke...



Schools' Technology Choice Draws FBI Interest
April 28, 2010
By EMILY ALPERT

The way in which the San Diego Unified School District chose a specific brand of technological tools has drawn the interest of the FBI, according to a local businessman who sued the school district over it.

Pete Spencer, president of a La Mesa company that installs computerized whiteboards, filed a lawsuit against the school district last year alleging it had inappropriately picked a specific brand of boards for its classrooms. Spencer says he was visited this month by the FBI, which is already investigating whiteboard purchases in Florida and Iowa...

San Diego Unified is undertaking a sweeping technological makeover for schools that include classroom sound systems, laptops for each child and computerized whiteboards that can pull up web pages and interactive lessons. Two Promethean resellers, Vector Resources and Logical Choice Technologies, won a $50 million contract to install Promethean whiteboards in San Diego Unified schools last summer under a $2.1 billion bond to renovate and build schools...

After Promethean was chosen, Spencer argued he was unfairly shut out of competing to install the new technology because he didn't have an existing contract to obtain and install Promethean boards. He settled with the school district and the two winning installation companies for $42,000 earlier this year.

Spencer said he was contacted earlier this month by an FBI agent who then visited his office and asked for copies of his legal documents, including the settlement agreement, letters between his attorney and San Diego Unified and the notification the school district published seeking whiteboard installers.

"She said, 'I can't tell you whether we're doing an investigation or not. But I'll take everything you've got,'" Spencer said. FBI spokesman Darrell Foxworth verified that the agent that Spencer named exists, but he could not confirm whether an investigation is taking place.

Former Superintendent Terry Grier, now leading the Houston school system, said he had not received any subpoenas or requests for information about the Promethean boards, which were selected during his tenure in San Diego. Neither has San Diego Unified, said its attorney, Mark Bresee.

Government agencies can only specify a particular brand of products in limited cases that are specified under state law, such as matching other products or coping with an emergency. Doing so can be a quicker alternative to seeking bids for pencils, flooring or other products. But the rules are specific, meant to avoid at least the appearance of favoritism for a chosen company.

The school district argued that it needed to match Promethean to other whiteboards that had already been installed in new schools. Technology chief Darryl LaGace said his staff had earlier evaluated the boards for a smaller installation and found advantages to Promethean over another brand.

But critics say that if all government agencies followed the same reasoning as San Diego Unified, they could simply block companies from competing for business. For instance, the city could equip a few libraries with a chosen product, then insist on matching all other libraries to it...


A reader sent a link to this page:

Montgomery County Councilmember Michael (Mike) Knapp on the Promethean Board purchase made by MCPS COO Larry Bowers: "At a time when we have limited resources, the school system had locked us into certain expenditures we couldn't afford..."

Gazette; Wednesday, September 9, 2009: "3,300 Promethean Boards in Montgomery County Public School buildings. Where did they come from?..."

Was conforming the secret to raising scores at Euclid Elementary?

Sam Hodgson

Carol Manivone teaches her fourth grade class about bibliographies at Euclid Elementary.

Was conforming the secret to raising scores at Euclid Elementary? Of course not. It was the collaboration. But apparently conforming is a good way to get the collaboration. It seems that weak teachers benefit from being told exactly what to do.

Small Changes Made a Big Difference at One School
March 18, 2010
Voice of San Diego
By EMILY ALPERT

...Teachers lost some freedom to decide when and what they'd teach; not everyone was pleased. But the change fit into a bigger push from Jacobson and the state monitors to get teachers on the same page, teaching the same thing at the same time. Teachers decided to keep it even after the state stopped eyeballing their scores. Bounce from one fourth grade classroom to another at Euclid on the same day and you'll see both sets of kids penning biographies of Marie Curie and Martin Luther King Jr.

"If one person is off in left field," asked second grade teacher Starla Ortiz, "how can we discuss what was successful and what wasn't?"

Conforming allowed teachers to work together: They could talk about their strategies on similar lessons instead of talking past each other. Teachers from each grade gather to look at regular, shared tests throughout the year, meeting for a whole day every six weeks and for shorter sessions more often. They analyze what kids understand and what they don't. They learn from coworkers whose kids ace the tests.

And they decide together how to re-teach the things students missed, then give students a quick, common quiz to make sure it worked. The philosophy is that two heads -- or many more -- are better than one. It also prevents gaps in learning, because everyone knows what is being taught and when. It might sound simple, but many schools lack organization -- or trust -- and fail to coordinate...

Johnson said that trust is one of the key ingredients in surprisingly successful schools: Teachers focus on getting kids to master their classes, not just finish them. They work together and share problems and successes. They back each other up -- but they don't let each other slack off. While reformers often talk about school accountability, Johnson said, they often fail to understand how school culture can be a powerful form of social accountability. Teachers don't want to let fellow teachers down.

That pressure is even more potent when they all have the same students, which now happens at Euclid. Teaching the same things at the same time also freed teachers to send children from class to class. Euclid teachers call it "deploying." Teachers temporarily divide up the students in their grade based on their abilities. Each teacher coaches a group with similar skills, allowing them to focus on their needs.

"You don't close your door. It's not like that anymore," said Carol Manivone, a fourth grade teacher. "Now they're all our kids."

And that altered how teachers teach. Euclid educators are constantly checking whether kids get it. When Ellen Leuthard poses questions to her second graders about grammar, they hold up whiteboard slates, allowing her to instantly see who understood and who didn't. Euclid may not look very different from the outside, but it actually changed what happens inside classrooms. Many schools don't...

Wasting precious education dollars on whiteboards, gimmicks and gizmos

January 27, 2010
Why I Hate Interactive Whiteboards
By Bill Ferriter

I’ll admit that there aren’t many topics I’m more passionate about than interactive whiteboards in the classroom.

Seen as the first step towards “21st century teaching and learning,” schools and districts run out and spend thousands of dollars on these gizmos, hanging them on walls and showing them off like proud hens that just laid the golden instructional egg.

I gave mine away last summer. After about a year’s worth of experimenting, I determined that it was basically useless.

Sure, my students thought it was nifty, but it didn’t make teaching my required curriculum any easier. I probably crafted two or three neat lessons with it, but there was nothing unique about those activities. I could have easily put together similar lessons using the computer stations I already have in my room and any number of free online tools...